Crabfest

On the August bank holiday weekend, UNUMC climbers and friends from all over the country descended on Portland for the first ever and long-anticipated Crabfest!

 

Crabfest is a deep water soloing trip and was invented by Chivers. The weather was as follows:

Friday - rubbish

Saturday - rubbish

Sunday - amazing sunshine yet windy

Monday - rubbish

 

For this reason a lot of people who were going to come along didn't and elected instead to watch a lot of tv, however we still had a very impressive turnout of 20ish people! And it was awesome.

 

We camped at the White Horse Farm campsite in Osmington on the mainland. Or rather, glamped. Zappa and I brought with us a big marquee so that we could all be civilised. When we turned up on Saturday afternoon (oh come on, look at the weather) we thought, hm, let's take advantage of the fact that it's only drizzling and blowing a slight gale and put the marquee up, and of course after unloading it and getting started it hosed it down and we got soaked. It was actually pretty fun.

 

Zappa with his new waterproof case for his camera - the Dicpac. With the white horse in the background. It looks like a fake, that White Horse, I mean for a start it's not white and since when did the ancients put riders with riding hats on their white horses? In fact let's put this straight, I will google it. I bet it was put there in the last hundred years.

Oh ok well here's the Wikipedia article on it:

The Osmington White Horse is a hill figure sculpted in 1808 into the limestone Osmington hill just north of Weymouth called the South Dorset Downs, within the parish of Osmington.^[1]

The figure is of King George III, who regularly visited Weymouth, and made it 'the first resort', riding on his horse, and can be seen for miles around. It is 280 feet long and 323 feet high in size and is best viewed from the A353 road.

There is a legend that King George was offended that the figure was riding out of Weymouth — a sign that he was not welcome — and never returned.^{[citation needed]}

The television show Challenge Anneka restored the horse in 1989. However, the project was undertaken too quickly and some errors were made.^[2] A project to restore the white horse is underway.^[3]

In August 2011 pranksters added a 'horn' made from plastic sheeting to make the horse resemble
 a Unicorn.^[4]
The Osmington White Horse is the only figure that is a case of both leucippotomy and gigantotomy

Well there you go.

I had been commisioned to make a Crabfest flag and it was met with a very warm reception to the extent that it was carried round on a long pole wherever we went. It was even present and flying over our barbeque circle time in the evenings.

On Sunday the climbing and hilarity commenced.

 Scott experiencing the occupational hazards of a DWSer.

 

Stubie trying a dyno

Me and Aussie Kate's washpig who sadly got left behind when she and Jake left for Europe, so I thought I'd take it on a trip with me.

 

Zappa and Wil, and Caz up the top who looks like she's going to dive in like an olympic swimmer.

 

 On Sunday night it was dressing up night, the theme being aquatic.(look there's the Crabfest flag!) Adam, Zappa and Joey had to pay the price of not bothering to bring a costume by having to wear bikinis. No, you don't want to see the photos of Zappa.

I didn't have a tripod but I had to include this photo anyway. The marquee at night, filled with climbers, candles and port. Much merriment was had.

 

Does it get better than this? I mean really?

 

Lulworth Adventures with the Chiverses

I'm in Hampshire with Zappa and family, and we got a call from Chivers saying he and Alice were somewhere near Swannage, Dorset and that we should come and have a deep water soloing day.

Deep water soloing is climbing above water without ropes, based on the concept that if you fall off you just fall into nice, safe, soft, deep water. Enthusiasts have taken it further by grading it on how true this idea actually is for the route, with S grades:

S0 - lots of deep water beneath you, perfectly safe (providing you can swim)
S1 - there might be the odd boulder and/or shallow bits you might want to watch out for
S2 - you should probably only do it at high tide, and pick your landing site carefully when you suddenly loose your footing and plummet downwards
S3 - don't fall off because you will almost definitely die.

We only do S0. Otherwise how is it fun? Anyway. Off we went to Lulworth cove, armed with chalk (for grip), a barbeque, an inflatable kayak and lots of clothes. It was blowing a gale and the sea was pretty choppy. I elected to be photographer.

The rock was doing crazy things. Just cos I hated geography doesn't mean I'm not completely amazed by stuff like this.

A brief sunny moment.  

The others decided to do a traverse all the way around the block on the right hand side of the cave, coming through the cave from the other side. Zappa did a recce of the other side in the kayak. He fell out immediately and I was laughing so hard I completely failed to take a picture.

Off they went, merrily, and I waited in line with the cave to get some good shots of them coming through the cave....

...err and they came back round the same way, looking very wet.



 They'd got halfway round and a big wave had rolled up. Zappa saw it and climbed higher, but Tom and Alice got drenched! Alice's legs actually got swept to the side and she somehow managed to cling onto two little crimpey holds to stop herself being washed down the rock face.

They decided to just stick to playing in the cave.

Joker.

Zappa comes off!

Zappa and I decided to go for a ride in the kayak so I could see the other side of the rock thingy. I don't know why I didn't grasp how rough the sea was going to be, I could see the waves coming through the cave the whole time and my friends had nearly gotten swept away, but it came as a terrifying surprise. It was ridiculous! I may have just screamed the entire time like some complete girl, couldn't help it. The sea was grey and white and churning, huge rocks would suddenly surface like whales right beside us - I was absolutely terrified! I really thought we'd soon be swimming. To get back through the cave we had to scoot alongside the horrible sometimes-submerged whale rock otherwise we'd miss the entrance. We got through and then a big wave came and dumped us on the rocks of the beach, quite conveniently really, it couldn't have been any luckier. I stopped screaming and proclaimed it enormous fun.

Seal Rocks

We continued down the coast and went to a place called Diamond Head, which was supposed to be good for surfing. There wasn't much going on and the surf was all messy and rubbish so we carried on. We went to Forster-Tuncurry, which is the two towns of Forster and Tuncurry joined together by a big fat concrete bridge. This was another of those places with wonderfully designed tourist magazines telling you it's the best place in the world, but it was just another town and we weren't persuaded to stay. Gosh, we're becoming place snobs. What if we're just impossible to please now? We were thinking maybe we should just go straight to Sydney. I told Zappa that at some point I had decided I wanted to go to Seal Rocks. I could no longer remember the reason, and there was no mention of it in our remaining tourist propaganda, but I just knew I wanted to go there. So off we went.

On the way we unexpectedly started skirting round the Great Lakes (we were previously wondering where they were!) and they were beautiful! So peaceful, and in the late afternoon light they just looked gorgeous. I didn't take any pictures as we were moving but in case you're desperate to see it, here's someone else's photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/petaurus/3641146840/sizes/m/in/photostream/

I was getting tired and the light was going, it was clear we had to stay somewhere as we probably didn't have enough time to get back to Sydney at a reasonable hour. We agreed we'd come back and stay in the Lakes if Seal Rocks was rubbish.

We found the road that led to Seal Rocks with my expert map-reading, which turned out to be a track with the biggest potholes we'd seen so far. We didn't hold out much hope for it being amazing, let alone have anywhere we could stay. I started to feel guilty about insisting we come all this way to this random place for no remembered reason. But when we got there, it was incredible.

Perfect, peeling waves - the best surf I've ever seen - in the most beautiful setting everrr. And then - look right - there's a campsite!

 The second bay

 Zappa got straight on a sunset surf, and absolutely stunned me with what he can do now. He always talks the surfing talk but when I come to watch he just stands there - until today. He was doing proper turns and everything! I was so proud of him!

 Pelicans provide patient company for the fishermen

I am SO in love with this place, it's already my favourite place in Australia so far. You know how sometimes you just know something is just right?

Crowdy Head

On of the places on our list to go to was Crowdy Bay National Park, as it featured in a touristy magazine and looked amazing. I'd already looked up the campsite we'd be staying in and was looking forward to it.
In Australia, some places have been entirely taken over by old people. Entire towns. They are eerie places. Everything is immaculate. There is at least one pharmacy on every street. The only animals around are little hairy rats on leads. All socks are blindly white and are pulled up to mid-calf. There is ALWAYS a bowls club, usually with tons of people playing. There are newly built, toy-town style 'shopping villages' with carefully replanted shrubs, where tumbleweeds go to get their sardines. Harrington, where the campsite was, was one of these places.

The, er, church, at Harrington's deserted shopping village.

We drove on through to Crowdy Head and found a seafood wholesaler, a lighthouse and a nice little surf break, nothing inspiring enough to stay for more than a day, but we went up to the lighthouse and Zappa gave the break a go.

I saw a cookie monster in one of those claw machines and wanted it and Zappa won it for me! That's proper boyfriend stuff that is. However he came wearing a hideous basketball outfit so I am making him a jumper. This and watching some of Zap's wipeouts kept me amused.

Search for Surf

Firstly, have a complimentary map.

The other day, Zappa decided he was going to go and surf Nambucca Heads, which the internet said was great. It was a grey day and had started drizzling when he asked if I wanted to come too. I thought, why the hell not, I can see new places and crochet in the van.

We found Nambucca's Shelley Beach, which the surf site had said was good and consistent, and was good for beginners.

It was rocky and scary and we thought we saw a shark. On with the search!

We went to Nambucca's Main Beach, where a load of old people were having fun with a bodyboard in the mush, but it wasn't really surfable, it was a blown out mess. We went into a surf shop and asked where else we could try. A lady told us to try Scott's Head, so off we went.

Scott's head seems to mainly be a big caravan park and old person houses, but as we wound our way through the cresents and closes we eventually came to the beach:

Woop woop!

Zap had great fun and got some rides. He also had some really funny wipeouts which were great fun to watch - although it was still raining so I mainly crocheted.

The next day we went to South Valla beach, which I am now totally in love with, it is gorgeous - and deserted!

Zappa watched some kite surfers play about for hours, and now wants to be a kite surfer really really badly, and has decided he is definitely buying all the kit when he gets back to the UK. This morning he has decided he is definitely buying a motorbike as soon as he gets home.

Yesterday we went to Digger's Beach again, where we met Matt (he wasn't there though), and there is absolutely no shade there so we bought me an Australia beach tent (it has an Australia flag on it - I am very proud of it). Zappa had a good surf, although it was super windy and getting the board to the water and back was a mission.

Autumn has definitely arrived, rather suddenly. Long pjs and a duvet and even .........socks in the mornings! It's still hot in the daytime though.

Minyon Falls

Warning: If you don't find trees even faintly interesting this will be incredibly boring for you.

Yesterday we decided we weren't going surfing. That left options of staying at home or doing nothing, or....well that was all we had. We asked around as there are lots of boys staying here at the moment, and Caleb said that Minyon falls was good for a trip. So off we went.

We spotted climbing routes! Only problems being getting to the start of the routes, topping out into thick Australian bush full of nasty wildlife, and the fact that we have no rope. Not to mention my ability to climb. But....

After going to see the falls close up we decided to embark on a Walk down to the bottom of it. I was scared but we had lots of food to fuel me and the promise of as many rests as I wanted, so off we went.

A helpful sign told us to look out for the progression in the plantage from wet sclerophyll forest to sub tropical rainforest, so this was duly noted. And to start with, a squiggly tree!

Cool roots

As we descended down deeper into the forest, it got generally darker but bright sublight charged through in bits, making the photos look all enchanted forestesque.

Snazzy lichen

Crazy rooties of the Bangalow Palm

There are a couple of cheeky fern things that have set up shop in the upper branches of this big tree, using its height to get lots of light.

It felt like a long walk and I had a couple of rests, but finally we found the river coming away from the falls.

We found a pool and decided to stop there and have lunch and a swim. The waterfall was just a few hundred metres further over some boulders but I was knackered and wasn't too fussed!

Zappa spotted a big eel! I was very excited. For someone that isn't that bothered about wildlife he's very good at spotting it. You can kind of just about see it in this photo. It got annoyed with me being seemingly inedible (or maybe it didn't like having its picture taken) and it properly splashed me with its tail and got me all wet.

I felt much better after the rest and food and we started talking about stuff we'd like to do, kind of like New Year's resolutions but a bit late. We talked about going camping and making things and going hang-gliding and stuff and I got so excited, and we talked about it on the walk back up, and other stuff, I was chatting away and I was so happy and distracted I didn't have time to get worried about if I could make it or if it was too much for me, and I didn't have a single rest and I was fine! It was a 2km proper uphill walk! SCORE. It is so insane how much our minds affect us.

Before we go, guess what this rather beautiful thing is?

Someone's windscreen!